


Love Yourself, Then I'll Be Back

by Gosarah15



Category: Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance
Genre: M/M, Phone Calls & Telephones, Self-Acceptance, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-08-20 12:57:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8249896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gosarah15/pseuds/Gosarah15
Summary: Pete's really pissed. Mikey fucked up big time.Based on a real conversation I had with my ex-crush. I truly loved him, and he knew it, but he just couldn't be around someone who couldn't  even love themself. I unintentionally hurt him and he's forgiven me about it, but at the same time he couldn't  forgive me until I forgave myself.Edit: okay, I'm kinda pissed at him now. I don't like him anymore or anything and I've definitely moved on, but like, besides this conversation that we had, he treated me like SHIT!!! Like, he had the most self-pity ever and yet he blamed me for the negativity in his life! Well, good riddance, honestly.





	

The phone rings and I’m unsure if he’s going to pick up. I begin to count the rings.  _ One, two, three. Oh, god, please pick up, Pete. _

 

I hear a click on the other end.

 

“What?” Pete sounds agitated, so I take precautions and try not to sound accusing.

 

“L-look, I get if you’re busy or something, but at the moment it feels more like you’re pissed at me for some reason… So, w-what’d I do?” I instantly hit myself for choosing to talk about myself.

 

On the other end, I can hear him kick something and I flinch, knowing that I messed up.

 

“Seriously?” Pete sounds more pissed than before. “You’re actually confused about why I’m pissed at you? I thought it was rather obvious.”

 

I gulp, and my heart drops. I was right, he really is angry at me.

 

“Please, just tell me.”

 

He sighs in frustration. “Flashback to the group chat. Enough said."

 

I think for a moment before it finally hits me.

 

“You mean when I said that you needed attention? That was a joke, y-you know I didn’t mean it.”

 

More muffled sounds can be heard on the other end and I know he started throwing and kicking things.

 

“Sure you didn’t.” He sounds unconvinced and I begin to sweat.

 

“I really didn’t.”

 

“ _ Sure. _ ”

 

Anger begins to burn in my stomach, but I try my best to restrain it.

 

“Do you think I actually believe that? Because I truly don’t, and I’m really sorry that I hurt your feelings.”

 

The muffled sounds stop and I can tell that he stopped pacing back and forth.

 

“Mikey, I’m sick of constantly forgiving people for them to disrespect me again… And yes, I do believe that you believe that.”

 

I try to speak at first, but my words get caught in my throat. My eyes begin to burn.

 

“I respect you more than anyone I know, we’ve gone over this before. You’re the most important person in my life and I know I can tell you everything. If I didn’t truly respect you, then I wouldn’t care this much about hurting you.” My voice cracks and I can feel tears start to run down my cheeks, but I carry on. “Y-you said you could trust me with everything, so, please, please trust me when I say that I respect you, that I don’t believe that you need attention, and that I’m so, so,  _ so  _ sorry.”

 

He sighs again, and it’s almost completely silent, all but the slight crackle of static over the phone.

 

“I’m finding it hard to trust you anymore.”

 

I cover my mouth so that he can’t hear the sobs escape from my mouth.

 

“When you say now that it was a joke, but not all those nights ago, it seems just a little fishy to me that you decided to disclose that now.”

 

In an attempt to compose myself slightly, I use all my willpower to keep my voice steady as I speak. “I just thought that you knew me well enough to not take it seriously.”

 

“Well, I’m sorry, but it was a little hard to understand that over text, or maybe I don’t know you well enough.” The venom in his voice as he spoke caused all the color to drain from my face. “But I’m not a FUCKING idiot. People don’t just say that out of the blue.”

 

Tears slid silently down my face. “We-we were joking around… Like, both of you were making jokes-”

 

“Yeah, related to the topic, and they were intended as jokes-”

 

“Mine was too.” It got to the point where we were both interrupting each other.

 

“Well, how the  _ fuck  _ was I supposed to know that, Mikey?”

 

I don’t know what to say, and he isn’t saying anything else, so I assume that he’s waiting for me to reply.

 

“I’m sor-”

 

“You came out of the blue and just wrote ‘he wants attention’.”

 

“It was a joke an-”   
  


“Well, I’m sorry, but if you did ‘care’, then you would’ve disclaimed it then, not just now.”

 

I don’t bother to contain myself and I’m half-screaming into the phone as sobs escape me.

 

“I  _ do  _ care! I care so much, too much even. But my feelings got hurt immediately after and I had already thought that you took it as a joke.”

 

Pete is silent for a moment and I can picture him running his hands through his hair. “I’m sorry, but I doubt I’ll ever be able to believe you.”

 

I’m stunned into silence. Tears continue to run down my face.

 

Finally, I muster out more words and it quickly turns into rambling. “I’m sorry, I fucked up and just completely ruined our friendship over a joke that I didn’t take the time to clarify. I won’t be able to forgive myself because I just lost the most important person in my life. I started to ruin it by letting myself develop feelings for you and then made it worse by not telling you. Now I completely lost you because I said something so disrespectful without thinking about it. I’m so sorry. You must regret meeting or trusting me because I just seemed to have just made your life worse.”

 

More silence. Nothing is said for a few minutes, but I can swear that I hear a small sniffle from the other end of the line.

 

“Mikey, if we are to ever be friends again, develop some self-respect, because this self-hatred is so pitiful.”

 

He pauses because he hears my sobs over the phone.

 

“My last piece of advice to you…” He stops to think and begins again. “Do you want to spend your life living in a cave? Do you want to spend your days being sad about all the missed opportunities, sad over every mistake, every misstep? Do you want to keep hating yourself for everything you have ever done? Or do you want to do something with your life?”

 

He can’t see me, but I know he knows that I’m nodding.

 

“Well, if you do, then start loving yourself. Then others won’t look down on you. Instead they’ll look up at you. You’re a tiger among sheep, but you keep telling yourself that you’re a sheep. Start being a tiger, then we’ll talk.”

 

It takes me a moment to process his metaphor, but I take this chance to speak. “Please forgive me, I promise I’ll work on learning to love myself. Please, I don’t want to lose you. I, I just can’t lose you, you mean too much.”

 

It begins to get harder and harder to breathe. I notice quickly that I have actually curled into a ball and was not seated in the middle of my room on the floor.

 

“Love yourself, Mikey. Love yourself, and then I’ll be back. Until then, I’m not going to surround myself with the toxicity of negativity. Look at the world. It’s more than what you see it as.”

 

“C-can we please still be friends?”

 

“Only if you fix yourself. Being around such negativity takes a toll.”

 

I stand up and begin to wipe at my face. My voice has started to even out. “I promise I’ll work on it. And I won’t give up until I finally find a reason to care about myself.”

 

On the other end, I can tell he’s smiling. “Do that, and life will give you more stuff.”

 

“D-does this mean that you believe that I can do it?”

 

Pete hesitates, for a moment. “We’ll see. Talk to me again when you start loving yourself.”

 

For the first time in a month, I smile. “Thank you for giving me this push. Although you may not see us as friends, I still value you and will not stop trying until your faith in me is restored. You will always matter most.”

 

The line goes dead after that, and I let my phone slip from my hand. I don’t move to pick it up though, because now I have a goal.

 

I now have a reason to try to love myself.

 

Pete is my reason to love myself. 

  
I’ll prove it to him.

**Author's Note:**

> A big thanks to my ex crush, but also a big FUCK YOU to him. Burn in hell, asshole. You inspired many decent-written stories of mine, but you put me through a toxic/abusive friendship and still haven't apologized for it.


End file.
